More Talent Management Facts #6

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”

John Lennon

Another edition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world. Some intuitive and some not….what do you think?

1. “Most of the investment in organizational training and development is wasted because most of the knowledge and skills gained (well over 80% by some estimates) are not fully applied by employees back on the job (Mary Broad and John Newstrom in their book Transfer of Training).

2. Research indicates that, on average, less than 30% of what people learn in training actually gets used on the job (Dana Gaines Robinson in the book Performance Consulting).

3.  In a 2008 survey of 7,500 workers on four continents by Blessing White (two-thirds were from NOrth America and India and the others from Europe, Asia and Australia), 75% said they trust their manager and 60% reported trusting their most senior managers.

4. In 2008 training organizations will spend $1,075 per learner, an 11% decline over last year’s spending figure.  The average training staff per 1,000 learners in 2007-2008 is 7.0 for all companies and 3.4 for large companies over 10,000 employees.

5. The average training hours consumed per learner in 2008 for all companies is 25.0 hours.  The majority of this training was industry specific (21%), mandatory/compliance (14%), sales training (13%), management and supervisory training (13%), interpersonal/soft skills (10%), IT (9%), customer service (8%), executive development (4%) and other (4%).

6. Today, 35% of the U.S. adult population is overweight and 31% are considered obese, conditions that lead to diabetes, coronary artery disease, osteoarthritis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other chronic illnesses. The estimated percentage increase in annual healthcare spending associated with being overweight is 14.5% and with obesity is 37.4% with organizations picking up most of that tab ((Finkelstein EA, Fiebelkon IC, Wang G. National medical spending attributable to overweight and obesity: How much and who’s paying? Health Affairs website exclusive, www.healthaffairs.org. 2003)). 

7. More than 60% of employees say that performance reviews really don’t do anything to help their future performance according to a recent survey by Salary.com.  In a recent 2006 study by SuccessFactors of over 1,000 HR professionals, 72% reported being only somewhat satisfied, not very satisfied or extremely unsatisfied with their current performance appraisal and evaluation process.

8. Krauthammer International recently did an online survey of 445 respondents (29% female and 58% worked for organizations larger than 500 employees) that the more “self-connected” employees are at worked the better their job performance.  Self-connectedness was measured in a series of questions looking at emotional stability, acceptance of unpredictability, resistance to stress and use of intuition.  66% reported they needed to “connect with themselves” to fulfill their potential and 33% were not confident they know themselves.  Finally, 64% reported following their intuition often or very often at work and 50% believe their boss would be sympathetic if they shared they aren’t feeling mentally well.

9. A UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders in 2008 found that only 13 of California’s 400 largest public companies have a woman CEO and women hold only 10.9% of board seats and executive positions (104% in 2006 and 10.2% in 2005).

10. In a 2008 BlessingWhite survey of 524 employees in diverse industries, approximately two in five (37.4%) reported their boss frequently or occasionally “micromanages” them.  Interestingly, 5.2% reported they “Don’t Know” and 57.2% reported “Never”.

11.  A survey by Accenture focusing on middle managers found that the most frustrating aspects of their jobs included: increasing workload (36%), not receiving enough credit for their contributions (32%), having no real clear career path (31%) and getting less support to do their work effectively (31%).

12.  Of the 144 talent management senior leaders who participated in the study “Ensuring Leadership Continuity: Current Trends in Succession Planning for C-Suite Executives by AchieveGlobal, slightly less than half (49%) do not have any established succession plan in place.  When asked what prevents organizations from implementing talent management/succession systems, 31% reported it doesn’t seem urgent (despite the fact that 16% reported an immediate executive vacancy and 37% anticipate a vacancy in 200(, 26% said it took too much time, and 21% reported it was too complex to do.

Off to get some new facts….Be well…..

[tags]talent management, succession planning, leadership development, succession planning, micromanage, performance review, performance appraisal, overweight, obesity, wellness, coaching, executive coaching, executive development, surveys, kenneth nowack, Envisia, Envisia Learning, leadership development, ken nowack, Nowack [/tags]

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)